Friday, April 23, 2010

What is it you wish to say? What is the heart of the matter? (The blog 27 days asks what you would write on a sick bag on a plane going down...)

Today I petted a cat, watched koi fish swim in a front yard fountain, saw a hummingbird and a swarm of bees, some ants. A hawk and a hillside terraced with wildflowers. We can learn everything we need to know about how to live from animals, creatures, nature. I know you know that. But maybe, like me, have forgotten.

Another blog stresses that writers must know their audience - whom are they writing to? As I walked, thinking of my post today, this question stymied me.

Then I realized.

I am writing to one person. And that person is the one who will most take my words to heart. I am writing to your heart.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Hoped to be feeling more hope as moon started waxing...but then Mercury went retrograde! Damn.

And my idea about doing unto others as one would do unto Oprah is proving beyond my capabilities! I have not the energy to treat everyone as royalty. (She is royalty here in U.S.)

(I did get my manuscript to my friend as promised, finally.)

I so wanted to inspire. But I feel about as qualified to teach others as a fish. A flopping, gasping fish. And what is up with these earthquakes and volcanoes? Is it nature, the world soul, the collective unconscious, or the collective ego that is so disturbing the minds of every sensitive soul I know...?

I laid in the grass in Balboa Park yesterday, listening to wind in leaves and birdsong, staring up into the leaf shaped light. It calmed me for a moment.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Yesterday I was meditating about how to solve a situation...what is my part, and what is God's part? Maybe its like a knot in a rope. We can pull frantically on the ends, all the while praying/worrying/forcing, and the knot just gets tighter.

Or we can do nothing, let go, and ask God to untangle it. Barring a miracle, the knot stays tied.

Or we can do our best with our patient hands and wise hearts, and God's given breath and strength, to unravel the twists, and work them loose, gently. THEN we can let go, after we have done our part.

Monday, April 19, 2010

The other day I hung up from a call and realized I had been rather flippant to a friend of mine. There had been, in the guise of teasing, just a tiny hint of condescension in my voice. So slight she did not seem to notice...but I did.

Then I thought, if Oprah called me I would never speak to her that way!

A few days later another friend asked how the book was coming. I had once promised him a copy. Not only had I failed to deliver, I had completely forgotten the promise! I bet if Oprah requested my manuscript, I'd see to it immediately.

So I've been thinking...what if we treated people with more respect and value, including ourselves?

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

This Sunday we went to view the traveling wall from the Vietnam war memorial. I wondered what I would feel if I knew anyone of the 58,000 named on the black wall. I decided to choose an unknown man to honor. At the base of the fifth panel sat a bouquet of yellow daisies, a black and white photo of a mother and child, and a picture of a young man in uniform, Jesus F. Ortega.

As I glanced up the panel to try and find his name among five hundred others, I immediately saw one name clearly, Jesus F. Ortega. A small miracle.

Yesterday, I found a site called "flashy fiction" that gives writing prompts...this is a poem I wrote in response to a quote that contained the phrase "strange territory." (I guess war was still on my mind...)

A Photo Caption:We went strangely into territory smoothed by other's blood,though we did not know it at the time,we were making our own flesh dance,we were photographing our own bones.

In the desert, in the dry rain,we lit the fuse of Hiroshima on our knees.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

If you have read from the beginning you know this blog began with a dream about Oprah and how she saved my life.

If you came along recently, you will see that it is, of course, the Spirit, the soul, nature, intuition and dreams, art and poems, that save my life.

So this blog is really not so much about Oprah, as it is about saving graces, the things that come into our lives, remind of us ourselves, and return us to our own souls.

When I was five I peeked over a garden wall outside a green velvet yard in Seattle and saw a beautiful Asian Lady walking up the sidewalk as if floating. She was wearing a silk kimono which flowed around like colored water and had painted sticks in her upswept hair. Her beauty arrested me, and her image imprinted on my heart.

When I was ten I had a beautiful teacher who loved my poems. When I was eleven I wrote my first song. When I was seventeen I started painting. These things have come along over and over, and made me want to live...

Monday, April 5, 2010

Earthquake yesterday - 7.2 - in Mexico. We felt it in San Diego, for forty seconds - scary - stood in closet - enough time to think about top floor falling - to be afraid - to pray.

An earthquake in Seattle when I was four. It shows up in my writing over and over. (Ray Bradbury says writer's should mine their loves, hates, fears and obsessions from childhood.) The Seattle earthquake becomes a metaphor in my novel - the child's world shaking apart...

(An earthquake on Easter, God rising, the stone rolling away.)

Well it shook me - literally and emotionally. When we are confronted with shaking, with things falling down, we wonder what the hell we are doing with the time we have left.

And to tell the truth, I never know if what I'm doing is the most valuable use of my time, or the best contribution I could be making. For instance, this. Should I not be working on my novel? On publishing? I got a rejection slip yesterday. It depressed me.

What I like about writing in this way is that I know people will see it. It's not just in a drawer waiting for some publishing god or angelic agent to rescue it and deem it worthy. I am a part of a community of writers. So yes, this is what I wish to be doing with the time I have left - writing, communicating, connecting. Thanks for being in my world.

About Me

Star Saint Claire is an artist, writer, and singer-songwriter. She lives in San Diego with her husband Patrick, their rescued racing Greyhound, Millie, and rescued shelter cat Jesse Jack. Saint Claire has written a novel in which a wistful and urbane shelter cat plays one of the main characters. The novel, You Wake Dreaming, can be found at a page link above today's post.

Travelers Poem

If you decide to travel on with me,
you are welcome
If you decide green,
excellent.
If ivory,
likewise.
I am counting the stars
on my fingers
My mouth is full of fireflies
A small sound will keep us
traveling for days.

Blogformation and Clarification

A dream inspired the first several entries of this blog. Then I told some old stories, a blog-moir of sorts. Eventually, this blog shifted to be about much more, about all the Saving Graces that permeate our lives and connect us and complete us. This blog is NOW about how writing, art, animals, and other angels save our lives every day.

My Mission

My mission is to write, to paint, and to heal. My belief is that beauty is our saving grace. My gift is encouraging others on the artistic path to follow their dreams. My prayer is that we can all create a beautiful life through the divine inspiration of art...